Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: hobrien@pluton.matrox.com (Hugh O'Brien) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Non practicing RC with a few words to say. Message-ID: Date: 14 Jun 91 03:25:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Matrox Ltd. Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Hello, I have many reservations about religion in general. Nobody has "the answer". Religion does lots of good as well as lots of harm. I went to a Roman Catholic elementary school. I was a good kid. Twice a year the priest would came around to take confession. I had no idea what to say. Therefore I would LIE and say something like, "I disobeyed my Mother three times." I once read somewhere that Italian children were suffering from extreme anxiety from the confession ritual and were having psychological problems because of it. The Pope is a great man, but stuck in the 15th century. It is a terrible thing to see him go to some underdeveloped and overpopulated African country and preach against birth control. He ultimately is counseling these people to continue spiralling their collective population out of control. This will produce starvation and war. Thanks JPII. It seems that one of the root concepts of many religions is, "Pleasure is bad, feel ashamed". Face it, by the time all of us get to grade eight, we all want so desperately to loose our virginity. When we fially do experience the beauty and passion and fulfillment of our first sexual experience (out of wedlock), than we have comitted a mortal sin, correct? In other words, "have sex and go to hell". I will stop here for now. However, I do have a few last words. The bible is just one of many books in the world, don't let it rule your life. Ultimately, "religion" is you, yourself. When you die, and if there is a judgement, then it will be based on who you are, and who you know yourself to be. You can have sex out of wedlock, and do a million other things that are not approved by the religious powers that be, and still be a good person. If you are a good person, then you deserve to go to heaven, if it exists, just as much as someone who has said the rosary every day of her/his life and adhered to the moral code of such_and_such religion. Also, there exists the VERY distinct possibility that death brings absolute nothingness. Your state of conciousness is nothing more than a manifestation of the processes of your body burning food. As an astronomer would say, man is just some matter that has become aware of its own existance and of the existance of the universe. If this is true, then you must posess the moral strength to continue being a good, decent human being. The meaning of life is then life itself, without the need for some fantastic story that happened a long, long time ago. -- ............................................................................. Hugh O'Brien USENET:hobrien@matrox.com //// Pat Paulsen for president in '92. \\\\ .............................................................................